How to grow rice for a better harvest

(This is the translation of a letter sent by my uncle, Fr. Christian Soudée SJ, a Jesuit priest who has lived in Madagascar for decades, about the work of one of his confrères.) Fr. Henri de Laulanié SJ, an agronomist who has worked in Madagascar for many years , realized one day that rice that had been accidentally transplanted a month earlier than normal gave a much better yield than the rice transplanted after two months, as is the custom. This inspired him to study more closely the timing of rice transplanting. Normally, farmers sow the rice in a small space, and densely, so that the rice grains touch each other. When the seedlings develop, they grow vertically, with very thin stems. Each plant has only one stem, because there is no room between plants so they cannot branch out. Similarly, the roots dig down vertically to search for sustenance instead of branching out in bunches. At transplanting time, two or three months later, people take a handful of plants and tear them out roughly. The plants are damaged, and the bottom part of the roots with all the radicles (secondary roots) are left behind . After transplanting, the plants turn yellow, which shows they are withering for lack of nourishment. They have to reconstitute their root system, which can take three weeks or more, after which growth can begin again. Since each plant only has one stem, people plant them very close together, to fill the rice paddy. Traditionally, the women who do the transplanting put 3, 4, 5, or 6 seedlings together! Which means they need a lot of seedlings. The New Technique Fr. de Laulanié started to experiment, transplanting the rice after one month, 15 days, 10 days, and even 8 days, sowing the grain much more sparsely, and sowing in mud instead of water. These experiments took several years, and yields were compared. He also changed the way seedlings well pulled up, so that roots would not be damaged. He concluded that the earlier the transplanting, the better the yield. The best time was 8 to 13 days after sowing. This meant the tiny plants must be picked up carefully with a shovel, taking some of the dirt with them. Thus the roots are not damaged, and the seedling continues to grow without a break. This shortens the growing season by three weeks or more. Since the seedlings are started far apart in the nursery plot, they are easy to transplant one at a time. They are also planted at a certain distance from one another. This allows the plant to branch out, meaning that new stems grow at the base of each leaf, and a single plant can give 10, 20, 30 or even 50 stems, and that many ears. Meanwhile, the roots grow in thick clusters close to the surface, where they get more nitrogen and oxygen than they would deeper down. And because growth has been continuous, the ears are much fuller. Yields are multiplied by 10, 20 and even more. The main problem with this method is that water must be carefully controlled at transplanting time, so as not to drown the tiny seedling. It must be transplanted in mud, and water must be allowed in gradually as the plant grows. Great Hope for Madagascar The high plateaux between Tananarive and Fianarantsoa is arguably overpopulated and many young people cannot stay to work on the family farm. They are forced to migrate and either move to the city, where work is hard to find, or migrate to the less densely populated western regions. Using Fr. Laulanié's rice-growing method should help feed more people on the high plateaux and allow more of the young people to stay on their ancestral lands.

IWC Black & White Dinner-Dance

The International Women's Club, after weeks of preparation of ever-increasing intensitey, hosted its main annual fundraising event on Saturday. The Virunga Hall of the Memling Hotel saw us carrying supplies, bringing in roses, climbing ladders, hanging drapes, arranging centerpieces, counting masks, threading sequins, making lamps, applying lace, planning seating, discussing costs, folding programs, rolling up napkins, numbering tables, arguing with hotel management, counting settings, sorting raffle prizes, admiring, discussing, sharing, laughing, worrying, giving up, plodding on, communicating and miscommunicating.

It was a great success.

Proceeds go to feed very hungry children in Kinshasa. Part to a Franciscan Missionaries of Mary nutrition center, where moderately and severely malnourished children are given a new lease on life, and part to Padre Guido's O.S.E.P.E.R, where hundreds of street children find safety, food, medical care, and something sorely lacking in their lives: affection and hope.

Ticket sales, wine sales, a raffle... all brought in much-needed cash in $10's, $20's and $100's. And corporate and private sponsors donated by $1000's, we didn't thank them enough. What's amazing is how far each one of those dollars goes here. A child can eat decently for under $1 a day. School fees at $30 a year don't seem like much but it's more than most parents make in month here.

It is sometimes argued that aid to poor countries is counterproductive: "enabling" corruption and apathy. Perhaps, but in the meantime, tomorrow's citizens aren't getting enough nutrition for brain development. You won't be able to fix that later.

Solar potatoes!

Sophie gave me a Solar Cooker for my birthday. It consists of a dark metal pot and lid, a folding cardboard contraption lined with foil on one side, and a few other items - a plastic baking bag, two clothespins. Here it is on our front lawn on Saturday, NOT cooking potatoes, because Saturday's kind of partly cloudy was just too cloudy. Those potatoes had to finish cooking on the stove even after 6 hours of partly sunny. We placed it on a large plastic bag because the grass was wet. That may be a clue: if your grass is wet, it just ain't sunny enough for Solar cooking. Picture 3 gives you a vague idea of the glare you get if you stand in the wrong place. It is completely blinding. And picture 4 shows the potatoes we cooked on Sunday, a very Sunny day indeed. In less than three hours, the potatoes were done to perfection!

Recipe: Partly peel 1 lb potatoes as desired. Cut into thick slices. Place in pot. Toss with olive oil, rosemary, salt and pepper. Cover. Place the pot into the bag, loosely twist the top of the bag and tuck it under the pot, and place the pot in the reflective thingy. Leave alone for 3 hours but check regularly to make sure some palm tree's shade hasn't intruded on your energy source. Open carefully, steam comes out! Mm, mm, mm!

Stand Proud

"Stand Proud" is the English name of a non-governmental organization created in Kinshasa by an American USAID Officer, Jay Nash, and run by a British Embassy spouse, Lisa Seymour. Its mission is to rehabilitate children with lower limb handicaps: some are victims of polio, some of quinine shots to treat malaria (see Uganda: Post-Injection Paralysis - The New Polio at http://allafrica.com/stories/200712100090.html).

About 130 children of all ages live at the Stand Proud home, get surgery and rehab, and braces that the older children have learned to make from scrap materials bought at the local markets. Their workshop is around the corner. To make a brace, an outline of the leg is drawn on sheets of used paper taped together - just like you drew an outline of your hand in kindergarten. Then the braces are made to measure using steel rods and leather, with a locking hinge at the knee so the child can sit down as needed - this is enables them to use public transportation (tighly packed minivans).

When we visited the workshop, they had run out of money for materials, so no work was going on. This is the shelf where they keep the braces they're working on.

The home has rooms for the girls and the boys, who sleep on mattresses that cover the entire surface of the bedroom floors. This is an improvement for most of the kids. They go to school nearby. They may stay at the home for months or years, depending on their condition.

This is the bathroom where children of both sexes and all ages clean themselves:

Not much privacy! By the way, this standpipe is the only source of water for the kitchen and all other uses as well. In the background there is a garden patch where the children learn to grow vegetables for their own nutrition. The toilets are much, much worse than the "bathroom." After an appeal by Lisa, the International Women's Club scraped the bottom of their piggybank and funded the design and construction of real showers and toilets, two toilets and one shower for girls, and the same for boys, including grab bars and other special conveniences for handicapped kids. This will make a tremendous difference in everyone's health and comfort. This is the corner of the yard where the new bathrooms will be built: This structure will be removed, of course. Just around the corner to the right is the laundry area, with the kitchen all the way in the back, in another corner that has recently been roofed, for $200, so that cooking can happen even if it rains. Here is a closeup of the "kitchen":

All Aboard!

This is what public transportation becomes when deregulation is taken to its logical extreme.

More bird songs

Another, longer, recording is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4MOR8X7GZU Enjoy!

Songbird

I'm taking advantage of a trip to the U.S. (and access to high-speed Internet) to upload videos of a bird that sings in our garden in Kinshas. He has a variety of melodies that are very musical!

I recorded this on my little digital camera one night. Sorry, the visual is not very interesting - it's what I see out my bedroom door at night: garden lights reflected in the pool. The interest is all in the bird's song: it has melody, rhythm, repeated phrases and variations.. amazing!